Metaphor
by ZeldaDragon
Summary: Neo thinks about Trinity. I didn't think it was possible, to love her more than I already did...


**This particular work is being posted today, the 21st of August, as a dedication to the wonderful actress I've been enthralled with for the last few years. Today is Carrie-Anne Moss's birthday, and though it is quite likely that she will never ever even see this, I am showing her the respect I believe she deserves through writing for her.**

**Okay, now a few words about someone else. Last night I was quite ready to delete this entire fic in one of my fits. Daydreamer731 pulled me from that rather serious bout and told me to finish. Being the stubborn girl I am, I refused…so she wrote some of it for me. So a good bit of credit goes out to my wonderful Daydreamer for this. Thank you so very much for being so kind to me. You have no idea how much I appreciate that.**

**A few disclaimers…characters: not mine; lyrics: from The Fantasticks.**

**Enjoy, and happy birthday Miss Moss!**

_**xxxx**_

_**Metaphor**_

_**xxxx**_

It seems that I fall deeper in love every time I lay eyes on her. I didn't think it was possible, to love her more than I already did. But whenever I catch a glimpse of her, doing anything at all from beating cops in the Matrix to fixing a broken cable in the Core, my heart swells even more.

She's an amazing woman, Trinity. I don't think I could ever have more respect for anyone. From the moment I saw her in the club I knew she was important. Looking at her now, sleeping uneasily beside me, I'm again stunned at everything she does, everything she has already accomplished in her life. It's strange to think that even though I'm older than she is in birth order, she's much older than I in every other way. She's revered among her colleagues as one of the best soldiers in the resistance, while I'm known as simply being the One. If I didn't have that title, no one would have ever given me a second thought. Before I was freed I couldn't do anything worth notice. Nothing at all.

She stirs a bit in her sleep, a slight frown marring her face. Her lips twitch, returning to their normal bend as the dream flits away. Again, I feel my heart beat a little faster, feeling her pressed up against me. This beautiful woman...she is untouchable. At least, I had _thought _so. She's a fighter; I've seen her beat the crap out of adversaries day in and day out. There's just no defeating her. But then there's _this _side of her...the kindhearted, compassionate woman no one ever knew.

Link told me a while ago that I'm the only man Trinity has ever really slept with more than once. That I'm the only man he's ever seen get so close to her in such an intimate way. And Link would know. I mean, he may not have been the Neb's operator for very long, but his family -- well, _Zee's _family -- has known Trinity for her entire free life. Or at least that's what he's told me. Even though, there's still so much I don't know about her. So much I _want _to know about her.

"_Where were you?" I hear myself asking, my own voice an echo in my head several months old. _

"_Hm?" She is stretched out beside me on the bed. It is night, and the ship around us is quiet, though neither of us can find sleep. _

"_When you were freed. Where were you? And what were you?"_

"_A dragon with wings and fire-breath," she deadpans, giving me that look she gets when she thinks I'm being silly. _

"_Okay, stick to the where," I try again. _

"_In college, being trod upon by the upperclassmen." A piece of hair has fallen into her eyes, but she doesn't seem to notice it. I have the sudden urge to brush it away, but something tells me it'll break the spell if I do. It's not often that I manage to get Trinity talking about herself like this._

"_Freshman?" I prompt._

"_Sophomore."_

"_Worse." She laughs a bit at that, and I feel as if I've just scored a major victory. Still, I don't want it to stop here. "Studying what?" _

"_What did you study in college?" I get the feeling that she's stalling now, and for a moment I'm not quite sure how to call her on it. Finally I end up blurting the first words that come to mind._

"_I asked you first." She smiles again, and her impossibly blue eyes seem to glow in the low light of our cabin._

"_History," she says, surprising me. _

_History? Trinity? I'd been expecting computer science, maybe even math of some kind…history? _

'_I thought…'_

'_Most guys do.'_

"_Okay," I say, because I have no words but something needs to be said. "So…do you remember any of it?"_

"_Every bit." There is a bit of a challenge in her eyes, I think. I wouldn't dare ask if I didn't think she wanted me to._

"_Prove it."_

"_Ask me something. Anything."_

_Why do you love me? What is it that you see? How can you be so amazing?_

"_Okay…uh…why was Marie Antoinette beheaded?" Easy question, yes, but my own memory of high school history is less than satisfactory. _

"_She was a first class bitch." I suppose technically this doesn't prove anything at all about her knowledge of history, but there's something so at ease about the way she's just answered that I feel certain Trinity could write me a whole novel on the subject should I ask for more._

"_All right. Who was the queen of England in…" I wrack my brain for the most obscure year I can think of. "1559?" _

"_Elizabeth I," Trinity raps back without missing a beat. I have no idea whether she's right once again, but I know I'll lose should I challenge her. _

"_Okay, you win." I lean over and kiss her, but she snakes her long fingers in between us, and pushes me away after a moment. _

"_Your turn," Trinity murmurs, her breath on my lips making me shiver._

"_What?" The kiss has made me slightly lightheaded, as always, and suddenly I'm finding it very hard to focus on what she's saying._

"_Your truth. I told you a secret, now you tell me one." _

_I still don't know what I'm doing here. I'm scared I'm going to let everyone down. I'm not strong enough._

"_My mother forced me to take voice lessons until I was seventeen and threatened to leave home on my next birthday if she didn't let me stop."_

_Trinity's eyes light up at this, and I know instantly I've made a big mistake. _

"_You sing?"_

"_No. I don't sing. I can't sing."_

"_But you took voice lessons." I can see where this is going. I don't like it._

"_On pain of death."_

"_So you must have learned something." She narrows her eyes at me, the challenge in them growing out of proportion._

"_No. I didn't. Nothing."_

"_Prove it then."_

"_What?" I have a sudden realization that this is what the cops must feel like in the Matrix, on the occasion that she feels like playing with them before kicking them senseless._

"_Prove that you didn't learn anything. Sing for me and show me how bad you are." Suddenly I want to find and torture whoever invented reverse psychology. Trinity pushes me back against the bed, climbing on top of me and taking hold of my shoulders._

"_I…um…okay." It's hard to breathe right with her practically sitting on my stomach, and I'm anything but focused, but at this point it doesn't really matter how I sound. I sing the first words that come to my mind, and ignore the fact that my voice is terribly out of practice and I've forgotten half the tune. "Love! You are love, better far than a metaphor can ever, ever be. Love! You are love! My mystery of love!"_

_For a moment she looks as though she's going to cry, then seems to remember just how very bad my intonation was. The corners of her mouth stretch up into a beautifully crooked grin, and I lose it. I laugh like I've never laughed before in my life, until my stomach hurts and I'm blind with tears. It isn't until then that I realize she's laughing too, and it's the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. For the first time in my life, I'm laughing and I don't feel as if it's at my own expense._

"_That was…"_

"_Awful," I finish for her, still trying to get my breath. _

"_I wouldn't say that." And she doesn't. Doesn't even say another word about it, until tonight. _

I look over at her now, sleeping beside me, and my thoughts drift back to the present, to a few hours ago.

_You have a lovely voice, _she'd said. And suddenly I'd felt more bashful than when I was actually singing for her.

I never thought that I would find someone to really fall in love with. I mean, sure I'd had girlfriends and such, but I had never really felt anything for any of them. The girls in high school thought I was the cute geek, and a few of them ventured away enough from their herds to ask me out. At that time in my life, I actually had hope for my future. Hope of finding that one woman I could share my life with. That hope burned and blew away when I turned thirty and had no life outside my computer.

Then I saw Trinity.

I'll admit, at first all I really felt toward her was lust. I saw her in the club and thought, _this woman is not my type, however pretty she may be._ I'm not sure when that feeling changed. Maybe when I saw her arguing with Morpheus a day or two after I had woken up. I didn't know what they were arguing about, but something about the way her face was flushed, about how she waved her hands in the air when she was frustrated, about how her eyebrows scrunched together when he told her to leave...something about how very _human _she was began to open my eyes.

After that night, I watched her closely whenever she was near me. I studied her face, taking in the creases that made her seem too old for her age, noticed how her skin was the palest I had ever seen, like the smooth marble in Michelangelo's sculptures. I remembered how tall she had seemed when I met her in the Matrix those times and saw that yes, she really was that tall. Her clothes seemed to droop from her body because she was so very thin. I wondered for a passing moment if maybe, before she was freed, she had been a model. The thought left as quickly as it came.

When I had taken in as much of her appearance as I could, I started focusing on her presence. I noticed that when she entered a room, the quiet chatter stopped for a split second as the eyes of her crew watched what she would do. One glare could stop an argument before it happened. A grin could move Morpheus to be more supportive, more lenient. And then…I died, and that presence brought me back.

In the back of my mind, I know that she's not the only reason I came back from the dead. (_You're waiting for something...your second life, maybe_...) If I was meant to be the One, I would have come back anyway, with or without her help. But honestly I like to think that it was her. That I heard what she said to me – felt her there beside me -- and came back, for _her_ and not because I was supposed to.

It's crazy to think about sometimes. She's Trinity…_The_ Trinity…and she chose me, of all people, to be with. She's perfect, everything I could ever want and more. My head still spins, not quite able to grasp that she loves me. That she actually _said_ it. I replay those words over and over in my mind, and can't help but be amazed every time she says them again. But she's here, and I'm sharing her bed (it was the larger of the two). She falls asleep in my arms every night, and I can always feel her breath against my neck or her heart beneath my hand.

I never want to let go of her. When she wakes up in the night, whether it be from restlessness or responsibility to take a shift, I feel it. Feel her slip away, trying not to wake me. Her absence leaves a sort of…I don't know…a _hole_ in the pit of my stomach. It's pitiful, I know…but I'm just so attached to her. She was the person to lead me into this life, and I trust her infinitely. Always will. I'm still coming into my full power as the One, and Trinity always has my back while we're in the Matrix

I love this woman so much…I just can't get enough of her. Her voice, her eyes, her kisses, her body. I love her so much it hurts just _thinking_ about losing her. I was never one to believe in soul mates, but now I'm starting to believe that I've found mine.


End file.
